HAMILTON, Bermuda, Jan. 31, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nordic American Tankers (NAT) today announced that an arbitration panel in London has produced an award in favour of NAT. Gulf Navigation Holding PJSC (GulfNav) was the other party in the arbitration. The case relates to the 6 year bareboat charter with GulfNav of the Suezmax vessel Gulf Scandic (now named Nordic Harrier) covering the period 2004 to 2010.

When the vessel was redelivered to NAT by the charterer in October 2010, it was in very poor technical condition. The vessel had not been technically operated according to sound maintenance practices by the charterer. NAT had the vessel repaired in the autumn of 2010/spring 2011, and made a claim against GulfNav for costs incurred. A London arbitration panel ruled in favour of NAT and awarded the Company $10.2 million plus direct costs and calculated interest.

In the maritime press there have been reports regarding the financial position of GulfNav. This award has no significant accounting impact on NAT.

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Matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides safe harbor protections for forward-looking statements in order to encourage companies to provide prospective information about their business. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts.

The Company desires to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and is including this cautionary statement in connection with this safe harbor legislation. The words "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "estimate," "forecast," "project," "plan," "potential," "will," "may," "should," "expect," "pending" and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements.

The forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions, including without limitation, our management's examination of historical operating trends, data contained in our records and other data available from third parties. Although we believe that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies which are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond our control, we cannot assure you that we will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or projections. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Important factors that, in our view, could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements include the strength of world economies and currencies, general market conditions, including fluctuations in charter rates and vessel values, changes in demand in the tanker market, as a result of changes in OPEC's petroleum production levels and world wide oil consumption and storage, changes in our operating expenses, including bunker prices, drydocking and insurance costs, the market for our vessels, availability of financing and refinancing, changes in governmental rules and regulations or actions taken by regulatory authorities, potential liability from pending or future litigation, general domestic and international political conditions, potential disruption of shipping routes due to accidents or political events, vessels breakdowns and instances of off-hires and other important factors described from time to time in the reports filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the prospectus and related prospectus supplement, our Annual Report on Form 20-F, and our reports on Form 6-K.

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